Generate Online Documentation in a Jiffy Using d

Productivity Sauce

Mar 14, 2012 GMT

Dmitri Popov

Turning a bunch of text files into nicely-formatted online documentation can be a real chore, unless you use a helper tool like d. This Python-based software can convert text files formatted using the Markdown markup into a ready-to-publish set of HTML pages. To deploy d on your system, you need to install a few packages. On the latest version of Ubuntu and its derivatives, you can do this by running the following commands:

Using d to generate documentation couldn't be easier: switch to a directory containing formatted text files (the files must have .markdown, .mdown, or .md), and run the d command in the terminal. You can then find the generated HTML pages along with the accompanying files in the build folder of the current directory. Upload the files in the build folder to your web server, and you are done. That's all there is to it. You might want to consult the Usage page for a few tips on using d.